Florida shooting: Suspect Nikolas Cruz 'confessed to killing students' police report claims - as it happened
Hundreds attend vigils for the 17 victims of the massacre
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Your support makes all the difference.The teenager accused of using an AR-15 rifle to kill 17 people at a Florida high school is said to have confessed to police that he was the one who carried out the shooting and carried extra ammunition in his backpack, according to a sheriff's department arrest report.
Nikolas Cruz told investigators that he shot students in the hallways and on the grounds of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, north of Miami, the report from the Broward County Sheriff's Office said.
The youngest of the victims in one of the deadliest school shootings in US history, was identified as 15-year-old Alyssa Alhadeff. Meanwhile Cruz appeared in court charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder. More than a dozen other people were injured in the shooting. The judge ordered Cruz - who has not yet entered a plea - to be held without bail.
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Police also laid out what they believe to be the timeline for the shooting, which is said to have started when the suspect was dropped off at the school at 2.19 pm local time [7.19pm GMT] by an Uber taxi. Sheriff Scott Israel said at a news conference that the suspect entered the east stairwell and pulled the AR-15 rifle out of a case, readying it and then beginning to shoot into classrooms. The suspect is then said to have shot into classrooms on multiple floors.
The suspect is then said to have dropped the rifle, a vest and his backpack before running back down the stairs. Police believe he discarded those items to join others who were fleeing and escape the grounds. Cruz was arrested about an hour later, having visited at least one fast food restaurant in the meantime.
In a televised address to the nation – his fourth following a mass shooting – President Donald Trump urged Americans to “respond to hate with love”.
“Later this month, I will be meeting with the nation’s governors and attorney generals, where making our schools and our children safer will be our top priority,” he said. “We must also work together to create a culture in our country that embraces the dignity of life, that creates deep and meaningful human connections and that turns classmates and colleagues into friends and neighbours.”
In his remarks to the nation, Mr Trump avoided the issue of gun control, which was the subject of a lot of talk from those in Congress throughout the day, but did say he planned to travel to Florida to meet with victims’ families.
Further details about the suspect, Nikolus Cruz, are emerging. This from the Associated Press:
Students and neighbors describe the suspect in the deadly rampage at a high school as a troubled teenager who threatened and harassed peers, talked about killing animals, posed with guns in disturbing photos on social media, and bragged about target practice in his backyard with a pellet gun.
Nikolas Cruz, 19, had been expelled from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School for "disciplinary reasons," Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel said, but he insisted he didn't know the specifics. Math teacher Jim Gard told the Miami Herald that before Wednesday's fatal shooting of 17 people, Cruz may have been identified as a potential threat - Gard believes the school had sent out an email warning teachers that Cruz shouldn't be allowed on campus with a backpack.
"There were problems with him last year threatening students, and I guess he was asked to leave campus," Gard told the paper.
Student Victoria Olvera, 17, said Cruz had been abusive to his ex-girlfriend and that his expulsion was over a fight with her new boyfriend. He'd been attending another school in Broward County since the expulsion, school officials said.
Cruz was an orphan — his mother, Lynda Cruz died of pneumonia on Nov. 1 neighbors, friends and family members said, according to the Sun Sentinel. Cruz and her husband, who died of a heart attack several years ago, adopted Nikolas and his biological brother, Zachary, after the couple moved from Long Island in New York to Broward County.
The boys were left in the care of a family friend after their mother died, family member Barbara Kumbatovich, of Long Island, said.
Unhappy there, Nikolas Cruz asked to move in with a friend's family in northwest Broward. The family agreed, and Cruz moved in around Thanksgiving. According to lawyer Jim Lewis, who represents but did not identify the family, they knew that Cruz owned the AR-15 but made him keep it locked up in a cabinet and never saw him go to a shooting range with it. He did have the key, however.
Cruz legally purchased the assault weapon about a year ago, a law enforcement official familiar with the investigation but not authorized to discuss it publicly told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
The family is devastated and shocked, lawyer Lewis said. During the three months Cruz lived there, he was respectful and quiet but also sad over his mother's death, Lewis told The AP.
"No indication that anything severe like this was wrong," Lewis said. "Just a mildly troubled kid who'd lost his mom. ... He totally kept this from everybody."
Lewis said the family is cooperating as their home is searched and that no one there is suspected of wrongdoing.
Longtime Cruz family neighbors Malcolm and Christine Roxburgh told the Sun Sentinel that the police came to the boy's house many times, as he used to get in trouble and harass people. Malcolm Roxburgh said a neighbor across the street kept pigs, and Nicolas Cruz targeted the family.
"He didn't like the pigs and didn't like the neighbors, so he sent over his dog over there to try to attack them," Roxburgh said.
His wife said she once caught Nikolas peeking in her window.
"I said, 'What are you doing here?' He said he was looking for golf balls. I said, 'This isn't the golf course,"' she said.
And, the couple said, when the boy didn't want to go to school, he would bang his head against a cement wall. They were scared of him. "He could have killed any of us," Christine Roxburgh said.
Donald Trump has issued a proclamation on the shooting – separate from this morning's controversial tweets – in which he says "Our Nation grieves with those who have lost loved ones".
The President will address the country at 11am local time, or 4pm in the UK.
In the wake of a Las Vegas shooting in October that killed at least 58 people, Trump spoke from the White House Diplomatic Room, calling it an "act of pure evil," and seeking to help the nation heal.
In the past, he has largely focused on mental health as a cause for mass shootings, dismissing questions about gun control.
Mr Trump has now moved back on to tweeting about his plans for immigration legislation. He posted on Twitter: "While the Republicans and Democrats in Congress are working hard to come up with a solution to DACA, they should be strongly considering a system of Merit Based Immigration so that we will have the people ready, willing and able to help all of those companies moving into the USA!"
Attorney General Jeff Sessions is speaking at a conference in Washington
He said: "We are once again watching images of children terrified.
"It's an image we don't need to continue to see.
"We've got to confront the problem.
"We have got to reverse these trends we are seeing in these shootings."
Mr Sessions said yesterday's shooting in Florida was "certainly tragic," adding that the administration will take action.
"We’re gonna work on it in many ways to do something about it... Something dangerous and unhealthy is happening in our country."
Mr Sessions added that those actions would not necessarily focus on the guns, but rather the shooter. He said that he thinks America should study the link between mental health issues and gun violence.
Kentucky's Republican governor has said he is heartbroken over the school shooting in Florida after a similar shooting at a high school in his state.
Bringing out an old trope, he has blamed video games for the incident. He said guns are not the reason for increase in school shootings, but blamed a culture that delegitimises life through violent video games, TV shows and music lyrics.
Mr Bevin called video games where people kill others "garbage" and said "it's the same as pornography." He said "freedom of speech" has been abused by allowing things that are "filthy and disgusting and have no redeemable value."
Sheriff Scott Israel is now giving a press conference - he says his office "will do all we can to make sure the gunman is convicted... and justice is done"
He warns against any false calls to police, as he says all calls about possible further violence will be responded to as a matter of priority.
He says anyone found to have placed false calls will be charged with the highest level of crime they can be.
Governor Rick Scott now saying that a "real conversation" will now be had between officials to ensure public safety and make "everyone safe"
"The violence has to stop," he says. "We cannot lose another child to violence in schools."
Robert Lasky, the FBI Special Agent in charge says that the FBI received information in 2017 about a comment on a YouTube video that said "I'm going to be a professional school shooter" - but there was not enough information to track down the identity of the person that posted the comment.
Mr Lasky does not mention it, but the comment was reportedly posted under a username that was the same as the name of the suspect in the shooting.
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